Lucinda Matlock Analysis

In the first half of the twentieth century in American Literature, writers often portrayed individuals who felt trapped in their lives. Some were trapped by love while some were trapped by money or circumstance. Other Americans were trapped by the color of their skin, their social status or something as simple as being a woman in the early 1900s. Regardless of why or how these individuals were trapped, it affected them deeply, often changing the course of their lives.
First, the idea of feeling trapped is seen in the characters in the poetry of the early twentieth century. While some poets wrote about being trapped by love, life or loneliness, for others it was based on their gender or the color of their skin. Edgar Lee Masters and T.S. Eliot both wrote poems about life, either living it to the fullest or failing to embrace
In Edgar Lee Master’s poem, “Lucinda Matlock”, he tells the story of a wise old woman who had a life filled with the joy of her husband Davis and her children while also enduring hardships such as suffering the loss of eight children and spending long days tending to the house. However, Lucinda dies content with the life she has led and reminds the younger generation not to let themselves feel trapped by the difficult moments, but to instead love the ordinary ones. T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock”, spins the tale of an educated man who was trapped by his own insecurities and feelings of inadequacy as he describes his failure to live life. For Langston Hughes and Woody Guthrie, their characters are trapped by the color of their skin. In Hughes’ poem, “Song for a Dark Girl” he tells of the lynching of a young girl most likely simply because she is a black girl in early twentieth century America, a time where race often